Your special occasions will never be complete without the colorful touch of hand fans. Whether it's a party in summer, spring, winter, or fall, hand fans are useful as cooling implements; they are great as gifts, favors, and decorations, too! So heighten the excitement of your event with these tips on how to make a hand fan:
How to Make a Party Paper Fan
Boost the cheerful vibe of any place with party paper fans or stick fans! Make its hand fan leaf in exciting shapes, colors, and styles, like a butterfly, gift, or teapot; glue the latter on a stick; and, enjoy them as hand fan favors of your summer party, attractive hand fan centerpiece of your restaurant or party venue, hand fan invitations for your wedding, hand fan decor of your office desk, and many more.
Materials: Paper board, hand fan wood sticks, scissors, glue.
- Make your design on paper board or cardstock. You can either print your design from a computer or cut the cardstock to your desired shape and decorate the latter with a painting, collage, or scrapbook materials.
- Apply glue evenly on the hand fan wood stick approximately 1/4 to 1/2 of the length of your hand fan wood stick.
How to Make a Folding Fan
One of the world's oldest, most beautiful, and useful handicrafts, folding fans are among the most challenging projects to make. You can, however, simplify this task by buying a cheap folding fan or using an old folding fan for your fan's frame and guide.
Materials: Folding fan sticks, paper/cloth for the hand fan leaf, compass, pencil, ruler, glue. Optional: Embellishments.
- Prepare your folding fan's frame.
You can buy a ready-to-use folding fan frame from a craft store or use the one from your old folding fan. You can paint your folding fan's frame at this step but see to it that the metal hinge securely holds the sticks together.
- Make a semi-circle paper or fabric leaf.
When using an old folding fan, simply trace the hand fan leaf of the latter to your sheet of cardstock. If not, make a semi-circle leaf: Start by measuring the distance between the opposite ends of the guard sides to determine your hand fan leaf's length. Draw a semi-circle on cardstock using the length measurement as the diameter. To make the smaller semi-circle: Measure from the tip of the hand fan stick to approximately an inch above the metal rivet. Open your compass to the latter's width measurement. Fix the tip of your compass to points of the previously-created semi-circle's circumference and make dots that will serve as your guide for drawing the smaller semi-circle. Connect the dots and then cut the cardstock to finish your hand fan leaf.
- Fold the hand fan leaf in accordion style.
Basically, the number of folds follows the number of spokes your folding fan's frame has and is often counted as follows: (Number of spokes x 2) minus 1. If you still have your old hand fan's leaf, simplify this step by following the latter's folds.
- Decorate your hand fan's leaf.
At this step, you can paint your hand fan's leaf or draw your design on them.
- Glue your hand fan's leaf onto the frame. Apply glue evenly onto each hand fan's spoke and gently stick the side of each fold onto the latter. Close and open your new folding fan carefully at first until its folds have been properly established.
How to Make Paper Fan Decorations
Decorate your baby's nursery room, party, or special occasions with a colorful and enchanting array of accordion-fold round-shaped paper fans! Use patterned paper in different colors and stick your hand fan decors on the wall, glue them on sticks and let them stand as hand fan centerpieces or cupcake toppers, or hang them from strings like buntings.
Materials: Decorative paper cut into squares, glue, elastic band. Optional: Sticks, string, embellishment.
- Make accordion folds on your square sheets of patterned paper.
- Secure the center of the folds with an elastic band.
- Open your accordion-style folded paper sheets into a circle.
- Stick the end folds together to secure the circle-shaped fans.
Make your DIY hand fans more colorful with embellishments and remember, hand fans are not at all meant for summer as you can verily use them all-year-round as gifts, Asian accessories, and decorations.
